


Terminal Velocity

by Liondragon (Sameshima_Shuzumi)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU to the AU, Air Force, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, Darcy is Tony's Daughter, Gen, Gift Fic, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Military, Navy, Run 'Verse AU, September 11 Attacks, Star Wars References, Swearing, The Avengers (2012) Compliant, Women in the Military, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 23:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7126927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sameshima_Shuzumi/pseuds/Liondragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A US Air Force remix of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/771491/chapters/1684840">Chapter 13</a> of <b>We'll Run Like We're Awesome</b> by The Monkey Cabal, which in itself is an AU of the first <em>Avengers</em> movie. That series lays tracks in parallel with all of the MCU.<br/><br/>This one's based on <a href="http://themonkeycabal.tumblr.com/post/136141211345/could-you-write-a-run-verse-au-where-darcy">this tumblr post</a> (I'm not the anon there).<br/>If you do more with it, definitely contact The Monkey Cabal! I may not be reliably online.</p><p>ETA: I just want to reiterate that I contacted the author before I publicly posted anything with their universe. This is not just a fandom courtesy thing; AO3 as an organization protects fanworkers' copyright. Please be considerate of fanwork creators. We're producing these for free, for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terminal Velocity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themonkeycabal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themonkeycabal/gifts).
  * Inspired by [We'll Run Like We're Awesome](https://archiveofourown.org/works/771491) by [themonkeycabal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themonkeycabal/pseuds/themonkeycabal). 



> This fic is an AU of The Monkey Cabal's amazing ['Run Verse series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/57783), a to-be-read-always companion to the MCU. Darcy is secretly Tony Stark's daughter, and instead of running into Thor, Uncle Rhodey wins bragging rights when she joins the Air Force. (This is meant as a homage to the fanfic, and while using Marvel characters, does not necessarily endorse the current franchise itself. Signed, me.) 
> 
> Mouse-over or focus on some of the acronyms for definitions! Apologies for any reading problems of the Danvers vs Darcy sort; it'll clear up.
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing it! It's raw, unfiltered indulgence fic, so any corrections are welcome (keep in mind the MCU hand-waving, of course). More notes below.

"Something's happening," Lewis said without preamble as she ducked into Carol's quarters.

"How do you keep getting in here," Carol grumbled under the covers. It was oh-shitty-hundred. Of course. Just because they were the only Air Force officers in a boat full of squids didn't mean Lt Lewis had to keep stalking her.

Not that Carol wasn't convinced that Lewis had stalked everyone on the entire aircraft carrier. They'd only been at sea for six weeks and Lewis seemed to know everyone aboard.

"Something," Lewis insisted. "I'm serious. SIGINT has been picking up chatter. And the CIC passed along a message last night."

Carol yawned, knocking over her fluffy stuffed cat. Lewis had picked it up for her in the Carolinas on shore leave after hearing the _one_ mention of her real cat, Chewie. The plushie popped with static electricity as usual; it had an impressive amount of fluff for one toy.

"Your spooky friends?" Carol said warily. It was no use telling the LT what she was or wasn't supposed to know; Lewis found out anyway. Carol kicked Lewis's legs out of the way and retrieved a tee-shirt from her locker.

"Danvers, this guy never contacts me. I mean, he contacted me once for some bullshit reason, but that was months ago."

Inwardly Carol calculated that 'months ago' had been Ramstein. Lewis had gotten a call on her special phone which all the higher-ups knew about and no one deigned to confiscate. She'd been damned grumpy about it, too. Everyone had been laying odds that the 'Bat-phone' was related to her ties to X-plane testing, except unless Lewis was impudently familiar with top brass, all the calls seemed to be of a personal nature.

"Maybe he has a crush on you," Carol said aloud.

"Ewww! Gross, no, he's like, oh ugh— _Danvers_."

Tweaking Lewis was better than coffee. Almost. "Okay, what was the big news?"

"'Be ready.'" She wrinkled her nose when Carol did.

"Ready for what?" 

Lewis looked worse than grumpy. She was always cool under the gun, and Carol felt her tension like a drop in the barometer.

"I don't think they knew what for," Lewis said. "And there's been no word since then."

*

Darcy stiffened her posture while trying not to trip over the stupid knee-knockers. She hadn't lived in close quarters like this since Basic, and being one of two Airmen in a, well, sea of Navy sailors meant she was representing for all the zoomies out there who were still subjected to Chair Force jokes. It was crucial to at least look like she knew what she was doing.

Danvers, now, she made it look easy. To this day, Darcy wasn't sure if Captain Danvers liked her. Darcy so wanted to be her when she grew up. Danvers had incredible instincts in the air, was a natural leader, and she was being groomed for the space program. On the one hand, they both shared a love for Star Wars. On the other hand, the entire time they'd been in this exchange program, she'd treated Darcy like she needed babysitting.

It wasn't like Darcy could blame her. Danvers could fly anything with positive lift. The exchange was mostly for her to learn how to _land_ anything the Navy way. Which was basically a heart-stopping crash-landing on a moving runway, ho-hum, all in a day's work — Darcy so wanted to bug her dad into making her a suit, just to see what she'd do with it. Meanwhile Darcy was... here to learn how to fix computers? The carrier's bridge was impressive to be sure, but Darcy had been fooling around with the no-margins systems for air traffic and satellite telemetry for years now. 

At least the weapons loaders loved her. When all else failed, she knew her ammo.

For now, she trailed the captain to their CO's office to check the duty rosters. Darcy was nervous about Agent Coulson's cryptic message. A voice-mail, at that. In a vehicle, she thought, and man, did she ever wish JARVIS were around for audio scrubbing. The only person who left voice messages was Sharon, and that was because she had the twisty CIA encryption on her side. Dad and Uncle Rhodey texted.

The phone was never for Darcy to place calls from. If she called, it meant she was either dropping out of the sky, or her pet drones had started the robot apocalypse. The Pentagon stiffs had been very clear about that. She itched to call Langley at least. She'd had her fill, second-hand, of inter-agency in-fighting, and she simply wanted to know if the CIA knew whatever it was the ultra-secret SHIELD did not.

"Nothing," said Danvers, perplexed.

Darcy blinked. "Seriously?"

Danvers pressed her lips together. "I think the slate's been cleared."

"By whom?" Darcy said. They exchanged a look.

"I'm going to go punch something," Danvers said. Darcy nearly opened her mouth to object; it was so obvious there was something going on, was she always going to be too young to be believed, it wasn't like she'd landed a BPZ — when her brain kicked in. The gym was right next to where they suited up. Danvers was unofficially going on standby.

Danvers sauntered off with a smirk like she knew she'd caught Darcy dawdling. "Uh, okay, I'll... go bug the bridge."

*

At almost noon, First Lieutenant Dickface (he had a name but he truly didn't deserve one) stuck his head in the gym and said they'd spotted some weird weather phenomena off the coast of New York City.

Carol didn't bother with a shower. She practically flew down to the briefing room, vaulting the knee-knockers and sliding down the stairs with a bellowed "Make a hole!" Unlike most of these babies in uniform, she'd been on duty on 9/11. They'd improved the systems since then, but this close to a major metro area, it wouldn't be the control tower with the latest information.

The television was always on in the briefing room.

Lewis was already there, of course. Carol stared at the shaky helicopter shot. "What the hell's that?"

"Top secret helicarrier," Lewis murmured.

Carol stared at her. "Are you _trying_ to get me court-martialed?"

"Oh, sorry," Lewis said, not being sorry at all. "Hey, dudes, what does that look like to you?" She pointed at the screen.

"Kitty Hawk class carrier that flies," said Martinez. "I would love to drive that baby."

"When it's not on fire," said Okonabe.

"Flygirl, you were working on stealth plating, weren't you?" inquired Malick.

"Classified," sing-songed Lewis.

"She obviously didn't work on this one, because the stealth isn't working," reasoned Adler.

"You," Lewis said, "are my favorite. Have a Kit-Kat."

Carol sat down next to her. She had marked how Lewis was sitting ramrod straight. They were also a little apart from the others, close to the exit. "What's going on?" she whispered.

"Attack," said Lewis tersely.

Every muscle in Carol's body coiled up with tension. "Ongoing?"

"They've stabilized it for now, but... could be. Someone hit them where they live. Stealth, propulsion, support. I think I saw a ship getting ejected, but I was distracting the guys from what was on-screen."

Carol grunted, as always impressed by Lewis's talent for analysis. As for herself, she was about to tear through the arm-rest. "Why aren't we being deployed? What the hell?"

"Above our paygrade," said Lewis with a shrug. "Captain," she said in an odd, furtive tone. "How much do you know about the Harlem incident?"

"Are you talking about the Culver experiment?" Carol's brows rose.

"Yeah, the Army's not-so-little Charlie Foxtrot," said Lewis in a disgusted tone. "Trying to recreate super soldiers. Don't look at me like that, what else is human and can destroy that much property in one go? Anyway, they tried to cover it up and... someone dug out the files. One of the experiments was trying to contain the other."

"Didn't work," was all Carol could say. There went Lewis again, with her secret-squirrel Pentagon connections. At least, she was only guessing it was the Pentagon. Lewis got her paws into everything.

"You know what it looked like, though? The nice one?"

"Green, big and green," Carol said. That part had been impossible to cover up. She hadn't known there were two of them.

"I'm pretty sure," said Lewis, blinking and touching her cheek like she still wore glasses, "I spotted something big and green ride a Navy bird like a bucking bronco before it shot out of the frame."

*

The longer they waited, the more terrified Darcy got. It was easy to lose track of the days on a boat, no matter how many daily announcements they got, and Darcy was thinking the date of Stark Tower's grand re-lighting was coming up. Tony had whined for ages about her missing it before getting embroiled in the pre-launch details.

At the moment, everyone in the room was getting bored watching the off-the-books floating ship, especially with no muster call. But not Darcy.

Said off-the-books floating ship was within spitting distance of the New York harbor, of _civilians_ , and her dad and Aunt Pepper were in the city, and in particular there was _no muster call_. Not even a general alert. And why were the news helicopters being allowed so close? A ship of that size would have, well, an aircraft carrier's worth of planes in support. Where the hell was everybody?

Then a quinjet zipped away from the helicarrier, tailed by a streak—

Darcy clapped her hands over a high-pitched cry. Oh, hell.

"You an Iron Man fan, Flygirl?" Adler called. Naturally the Kit-Kat had been a mistake.

"Keep yelling out call-signs that don't exist, maybe your invisible girlfriend will show," Danvers said absently. She ignored the others as they chortled at Adler.

Darcy was in a cold sweat. Tony had been on board? On a SHIELD vessel, with his newest armor? Rhodey had assured her it was only a consulting position! SI was refitting entire buildings on multiple continents, how did Tony have any time to play war games...?!

Suddenly the chatter last night about a terrorist attack in Germany didn't seem so inconsequential. Automatically Darcy calculated the flight time from New York to Stuttgart and back again, with the armor pushing its speed tolerances like she repeatedly told Tony not to... oh.

It had been an emergency. SHIELD had an emergency. SHIELD — which if Dr. Foster hadn't been exaggerating about them headhunting Dr. Selvig — was neck-deep in dubious weapons testing, esoteric power sources, and extraterrestrial threats. 

SHIELD would rather set its own ass on fire than call in for help from, say, every asset in the Eastern Seaboard.

Darcy worked up an internal rant about SHIELD instead of freaking out over the sputtering jet in her father's right boot. She could have imagined it, after all. Like the perfect vision after her laser surgery wasn't that perfect. Like she hadn't been parsing information from blurry pixels since she was twelve.

She was just calming herself down with the thought that Tony was obviously flying back for repairs when a beam of light shot up from Stark Tower and the sky _ripped open_.

Okonabe's yell covered up Darcy gasping. Danvers... Carol's hand was on her wrist as they watched a frickin' alien invasion manifest over Manhattan.

"Why aren't we scrambling!" Carol growled. They were forty-five minutes out, which would probably mean they'd only have a leveled city to protect, but at least they'd _be there_. Darcy grabbed the remote and called up every newsfeed she could find. One by one the screens lit up with a battle that was only getting worse by the second.

"Defensive positions," Darcy said, feeling sick to her stomach. "Pulling the line back for containment. They're giving up New York as lost."

Carol shook her head. "No..." Darcy remembered that her mother lived near New York. "What the hell, Lewis. What the hell! How are those Exogorths even flying?!"

Malick said what they were all thinking. "How'd they start a Star War and not invite us?"

Darcy fumbled for her phone. It was the compromise Rhodey had arranged what seemed like ages ago. "I don't have a signal," she murmured to Carol.

Tearing her attention away, Carol gaped at Darcy. "You can't do your thing on it, Lewis?"

"Not when it's being jammed," Darcy whispered furiously. "Maybe that's why we're sitting here. What if the bridge comms are jammed too?"

"They'd have called you up to help," said Carol reasonably. Then her expression shifted.

Who would know about the Stark tech in Darcy's secret phone to even use countermeasures on it?

Darcy stood up because she couldn't sit still. Her mind was whirling. Maybe all that in-fighting... all those sotto voce complaints of Sharon's... maybe that wasn't just in-fighting. Everybody was damned paranoid about an attack on New York and yet here they were again, everybody sitting on their hands. At least they'd be pointed in the correct direction, except they needed to launch, they needed to be in the air right now if they wanted to make a difference.

Carol looked like she was two seconds from hijacking a ship and going herself. Darcy was ready to help her. She'd back her up in the skies, except... the lack of information was maddening. Once the fog of war cleared, Darcy wanted to be in the carrier's nerve center instead of flying blind. She was too much like her father; even after all that training, she couldn't simply jump at fresh orders like Rhodey could.

However, as the minutes wore on, it was clear there was a defense being mounted. Darcy was flooded by a mix of joy and terror as she recognized some of her dad's moves as some of the flying worms went down. The lightning seemed new, but Dr. Foster had hinted cagily at something like that, so hopefully that guy was on their side.

"There's your green bogey," Carol said, pointing. It was like a surreal game of Where's Waldo as every camera wobbled at the hands of nervous pilots.

Then the brave little helo which they'd been trying to shoo away from the helicarrier caught something. There was an explosion on the flight deck, and another bird was launched and wheeled toward the city.

"Why only one?" said Martinez. A lot of the planes were damaged but surely a few more would be flightworthy.

Malick shook his head. "Maybe it's a magic bullet. Advanced alien buster."

The video rotated slowly after the jet as it sped toward New York.

Then it fired its payload.

Everyone in the room held their breaths.

In the blank seconds of Darcy's brain on a loop of _they fired on the city, evac can't be finished yet, they're firing on the city_ , she almost didn't catch the red-and-gold streak moving to intercept.

"Wooo, go Iron Man! He knows what's up!" Okonabe tried to high-five Martinez.

Carol swore under her breath. Her grip on Darcy's wrist tightened.

Where was he going to put the missile? He wasn't flying out to sea, but deeper among the skyscrapers...

Oh no.

It looked like they were going to hit Stark Tower, maybe take out the power source, but Darcy knew her dad, and she knew the suit's capabilities, so it was with a sick sense of inevitability that she watched the trajectory change to straight vertical into what she was now certain was a wormhole.

Darcy whited out. She was watching, but she couldn't process. After Afghanistan, after fucking Stane, after watching the Expo blow up, after the countless 'don't be mad' gifts when she found out about the heavy metal poisoning, after Tony had _promised_.

She'd ejected in an active combat zone and she'd never felt more white-hot terror than at this very moment.

Then Malick made a sound as one of the news helicopters managed to stabilize in time to record the wormhole snapping shut.

A tiny, seemingly inconsequential speck hurtled out of it.

No propulsion. No attitude control. 

"Dead stick," Adler murmured.

Darcy did the math in her head but she didn't need to. They all knew what terminal velocity looked like. They didn't have to graph it to know that Iron Man was beyond the curve.

Then the big green bogey came out of nowhere on an intercept.

Darcy crumpled into the chair, the cheese puffs Martinez and Adler had been fighting over when the aliens attacked crinkling forgotten beside her. 

"Dad," she choked out under her breath. She forgot Carol was right next to her.

She felt numb, and scared, but mostly? Very, very angry.

She shook away Carol's hand. Her phone — _had Tony tried to call?_ — the phone was still good as bricked.

Carol was always quick on the uptake. "Don't do anything _ill-advised_ , Lewis." 

Darcy shot her a glare. Right, invoking First Lieutenant Dickface. Warbird was such a troll. 

With an effort, Darcy slowed her heart-rate. Her head hurt. Her heart _hurt_. As the news helicopters jockeyed for a non-existent shot, abruptly Darcy sprang up and ran out the door.

"Lewis!" exclaimed Carol, far behind her.

*

Carol found her in Ops, calling in her favors.

"Who gave the order, Rhodey!" She flushed. "Sir!"

Carol winced. Lord, she was gonna get racked at this rate. She wasn't keeping it down, either; the whole CIC was listening in to her tearing into a high-ranking officer...

Then it clicked. Oh, oh, now Carol got it. If Iron Man was her father, that meant Tony Stark. And where Tony Stark was, you could count on—

"Don't cram the party line down my throat, Rhodey! That was a missile with a nuclear payload! Who authorized it? I know you know!"

Lt Col James Rhodes. Well, hell. Carol could hear the 'Uncle' drop in there. She had a moment of irritation that Darcy had been a legacy baby after all, a spoiled one at that, before remembering just what a helluva pilot Shadow Lewis was. 

With a sinking feeling, Carol thought the past tense might be applicable sooner rather than later.

"I know," Darcy said with a shuddering breath, and Carol realized she was crying. "No, I'm not even mad, you called me that in the desert. Did I ever thank...? Yeah. I know. I _read you_ , okay...!" Her voice was rising. "It's just, we were supposed to take the bullets for him, Rhodey. We were supposed to watch his six."

She paused. Carol handed her the clean shirt she'd been planning to change into before her workout was interrupted. Darcy gratefully blew her nose, wiped her face.

"This can't happen again," said Darcy suddenly. "I could've cashed in on those poli-sci credits instead, this is not acceptable, are you hearing me? I know you're on the inside but that's not enough. Nobody has a clue. I'm just, I'm done with that."

Carol hovered, aware of everyone's eyes on them. She knew that look on Darcy's face. It was the same look just after she disabled some gizmo then rebuilt it into something better. 

"Tell you what, secure transit to Manhattan and I'll share with the class. But, I mean it, Rhodey: I'm done."

Cautiously, Carol followed her as she marched out. Carol wasn't sure what she should do. If it were her, she'd want a drink, but Darcy wasn't a drinker, and oh, okay, that made sense given her father, the same way it made sense given Carol's father.

Carol kept following her up and down and across the decks. It always looked like Darcy was lost yet she always managed to get where she was going. Abruptly Carol felt a pang of regret that she hadn't made enough of an effort to get to know this young woman. The overwhelming sense of wrongness — of having all this power and not being able to _do_ anything — all that faded as she watched the set of Darcy's shoulders.

Darcy was a fixer.

"If anybody could do something about it, it would be you, Lewis," Carol said as they emerged topside.

The wind whipped through Darcy's hair. Again she rubbed her eyes.

"Captain," she said. "What would you do if the choice was kissing ass to go into space, or getting grounded and kicking ass?"

"Asses that needed kicking?" At Darcy's nod, Carol crossed her arms. Hugged herself a little. "I don't know. I've always wanted to go to space. It's the dream. _The_ dream. But... I wouldn't want to go if I didn't have an Earth to come back to."

Darcy watched the activity on the flight deck. The control tower cast half her face in shadow, and half in light.

"Captain Danvers," she said at last. "It's been a pleasure serving with you."

"Likewise," said Carol gravely. They shook hands. "Hey, call me Carol."

"Darcy Stark," came the answer. "Look me up."

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This story has not been picked in any way, shape, or form, which is partly why I'm letting it go into the wild. The Monkey Cabal has expressed that this AU should be a-happenin', and I agree! Just not through me. >_>;; Talk to me about world-building but I will *not* be making more of this.
> 
> There is a deliberately confusing mix of Air Force terms with Navy terms, because code-switching between armed forces branches could be bumpy, though it should all make sense in context. The language and atmosphere are also on the saltier side, if you're used to the original. 
> 
> Most of this was off the top of my head, but here are a few citations. [Air Force acronyms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._Air_Force_acronyms_and_expressions), [Age per Rank](https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-average-age-per-rank-in-the-US-military), [Air Force vs Navy aircraft carriers](https://www.quora.com/Are-all-aircraft-carriers-owned-by-the-Navy-or-does-the-Air-Force-have-a-few). Nothing like opening a page filled with military types to do military research, and scrolling into a picture of a SHIELD helicarrier. Talk about bizarre!
> 
> P.S. Oh I totally forgot about this! I'm not discounting the possibility that it was Sam and Riley who helped rescue her whenever she ejected into that combat zone. It certainly explains why Stark Industries made the Falcon wings.


End file.
